


how as day brighten’d

by fruitwhirl



Series: peraltiago tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, baby + christmas, drabbles i deemed too short to post on their own, highschool au (somewhat), hug + panic attack, it's just fluff, pillowtalking, sweet forehead kisses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-01-26 13:39:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12558564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitwhirl/pseuds/fruitwhirl
Summary: Of forehead kisses, high school, and more.





	1. high school + forehead kisses

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so i've been posting short drabbles on my [tumblr](http://dmigod.tumblr.com) for a little while now, and they never seemed long enough to cross-post here. and then i just decided to post them here, but in chunks! thus, here are "jake +forehead kisses" and "high school au."
> 
> title from "vigil strange i kept on the field one night" by walt whitman, which is one of my favorite poems (especially from the civil war era). i also had to memorize it for class, so. here.

_jake and forehead kisses_

Although Amy Santiago prefers to at least attempt to maintain a professional air in the workplace (leading many to think that she’s a total prude—which she totally isn’t), Jake discovers rather quickly into their relationship that his girlfriend is surprisingly affectionate.

Whether it’s a soft, small hand resting on his bicep as they walk down the street, or an arm loosely winding around his waist as they celebrate Rosa and his return in the bar, or a quick peck to his cheek in the morning as if she’s excited that they have another day together (he knows that he for one is _ecstatic_ ), she seems to enjoy showing her love for him. But her favorite method of physical affection, he thinks, comes in the form of forehead kisses.

He wasn’t lying, really, when he panicked when they reunited in Coral Palms and he exclaimed that their awkward exchange was a “classic Jake and Amy forehead smooch” because in all actuality, they’re pretty common—he’s just not the one that gives them.

Often, she’ll ghost her lips over his temple right before they fall asleep, wrapped up in each other in their bed of a thousand pillows. Or, a peck at his hairline when she’s been at the precinct for the past twenty-two hours and she returns to the bullpen to see him, perched at the edge of her desk with a large cup of her favorite coffee in his hand. Or, he’s slumped at their kitchen table and he’s tired and a kidnapping case he’s been working has turned into a homicide and she’ll stand in front of him, quietly, his hands moving to sit on her hips and she’ll bring him close and when she feels the wet through the fabric of her blouse, she just sits down across from him, cup his cheek in her palm and press her lips oh so soft against the skin just above his eyebrow and he’ll be able to breathe for the first time in days.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_jake and amy + high school_

“So, I’m thinking about leaving _Nine-Nine_.”

Jake freezes, the tiny braid of her hair he was working on—to annoy her, of course—falling from his fingers. Quickly, he picks it back up to avoid suspicion, and decides (which is totally not related at all to the bomb she just dropped) to focus instead on weaving the strands together as he tries to nonchalantly whisper-ask, “Why?”

He thinks that he hears her sigh, thinks that he sees her shoulders droop ever so slightly as she explains that she got a recruitment letter from _Pembroke Magnet School_ and she has an interview tomorrow and that she can’t pass up this opportunity.

“Ames,” he whines. “Why would you want to be a vulture in the first place? It’s a stupid mascot.”

“Our mascot is a pigeon.”

“A staple bird of Brooklyn!”

Amy huffs, shifting forward so that the rather glossy lock of brown hair (even if it’s a little tangled now, after being braided dozens of times) slips out of his hands. She turns her chin from him, avoiding his stare, instead directing her focus to her journal and Mr. McGinley, who’s half-heartedly lecturing on the War of 1812.

 Despite his various attempts at garnering her attention (which include but are not limited to: flipping the collar of her floral blouse—who wears a _blouse_ to high school?—up to irritate her, drawing smiley-faces on the margins of her notebook, and singing a song under his breath about the parrot from _Aladdin)_ for the next fifty-two minutes _,_ Amy refuses to even look at him and practically _bolts_ out of the room the moment the bell rings.

Which doesn’t stop Jake because he knows her next class (it’s, like, the only block they don’t share) and she walks into AP Psychology just to spot him, perched on top of her old desk that is definitely creaking underneath his weight. Instead of pushing him off, like he expected, she just stands at the door until the bell chimes again, and Ms. Wuntch glares at him with her beady little eyes and he only leaves when there’s a growled _get out of my classroom, Mr. Peralta_ and he decides that annoying Santiago into staying at Nine-Nine would have to be put off for later.

Later comes when they’re at their cafeteria table with Rosa and Charles and Terry who don’t seem to feel as betrayed as he does, and she stalks off again, and he decides that their free-period during fourth hour should be spent visiting Dr. Holt and going over their old stomping grounds and he gets excited when a smile grows on her face by the end of it, but that enthusiasm is duly crushed when he learns that she’s still planning on going to that interview tomorrow—he’s always known that she wants to change the world, but he guesses that he thought that he’d be a part of it.

(He ends up showing up to that god-awful school with walls covered in yellow and purple after her interview is over, a cake in hand that he got from the bodega and had his mom write “Congratulations Amy!” in big swirling icing-letters and he tries not to grin too large when she says that she’s going to stay at Nine-Nine but that they should totally still eat the cake.)

 


	2. of hugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rambledore asked: "Peraltiago + hugs, please?:)"

Although their first meeting was amicable (albeit tinted awkward with the arrival of a fanatical Boyle), Jake soon strikes up an almost antagonistic partnership with his new desk-mate—from Santiago’s straight-laced attitude and eagerness that reminds him of those annoying teacher’s pets from grade school. She scolds him on the unkempt nature of his own workspace, and frowns at him when he makes an admittedly dumb joke (though he thinks he catches a small smile sliding across her face when she thinks he isn’t looking), while he pokes fun at her post-it notes and severe bun.

With their constant _banter_ , as he likes to call it, there isn’t much room to chat about more personal topics, and right now, as they’re leaving the twenty-third floor of an apartment complex after a rather boring round of door duty and he’s obnoxiously rushing forward to be the first one to press the button for the ground floor, the last thing they plan on doing on the forty-five second trip is discover something new about the other.

Even when the elevator car jolts to a stop, Jake just assumes they’ll continue flitting between a conversation about their current grand larceny case and him reciting the first verse of “All Star” by Smash Mouth but in really bad impressions for the next couple of minutes it’ll take for it to start moving again. That’s why he’s surprised when in the middle of a lyric done in the style of Kermit the Frog he can’t hear Santiago rolling her eyes anymore and in its place, there’s a shuffle and something like a gasp.

He turns, expecting to see Santiago, like, upset that her bun fell out, but instead she’s hunched over a few feet away in the corner, head tucked between her knees. And, fuck, she’s _shaking._ Idly, he recalls a time when she mentioned that she’s claustrophobic, and his heart drops to his stomach.

“Santiago?” No response. “Amy?” Still, nothing.

Jake sucks in a deep breath, crouches down next to her. She doesn’t seem to even register his presence, her chest shuddering, pulling in shallow, uneven breaths.

“Amy,” he tries again, and when she doesn’t say anything, he slides her hands from her trouser-covered knees to press into the unfortunately scuffed tiled floor, placing his own hands over them to keep them in place. “Amy, you’re having a panic attack. We’re gonna be out of here soon.”

She glances up at him then, her eyes wide and terrified, and he removes his left hand to fumble around in his pocket. Extracting a piece of peppermint flavored gum that he hopes isn’t as old as he thinks it is, he unwraps it and holds it up to her mouth. She scrunches her nose at him the best she can, and honestly if she wasn’t in the midst of a panic attack he’s pretty sure she would’ve berated him about the sanitation of the gum, but with prompting, she shoves it into her mouth.

“Amy, we’re gonna breathe together, okay?” Amy nods as much as possible, or at least he thinks she does. “Breathe in for a five count, and then breathe out for a ten count. Yeah?”

She doesn’t respond, so he starts counting, but at first he thinks it works but then her chest starts heaving again, uneven and erratic, and so he brings out the big guns, reaching for his cell phone and hitting play on the first playlist.

“Fleet-fleetwood _Mac?_ ”

Jake shouldn’t be surprised that she’s able to inject so much ridiculing disbelief into two words even in the middle of a literal panic attack, but he nods anyway, says something about breathing along to it as he counts the beats aloud.

_One_

_Two_

_Three_

_Four_

_Five_

_Ten_

_Nine_

_Eight_

_Seven_

_Six_

_Five_

_Four_

_Three_

_Two_

_One_

Every moment she isn’t snarking back at him is agonizing, and it takes a long time, but after a few minutes (hours? days? he’s not sure), her chest rises and falls at an even, slow-paced rate, and he doesn’t even realize that he’s still holding her left hand until she’s smiling awkwardly, slipping hers out from under his.

“Thank you.” The words are quiet, meek.

He’s about to respond, when they feel the car jolt and the lights over the buttons blink on and off, on and off.  

Santiago furrows her brow, asks, “What’s going on?”

“The car’s moving again. Wanna try and stand up?” She shakes her head yes, and after he rises, holds out his hand to help her do the same. Santiago looks okay, he thinks, aside from her bun pulled a little loose, and her blouse slightly wrinkled and askew.

It’s exactly thirty-four seconds until they reach the ground floor, and he knows this because he’s trying not to focus on the shift in the atmosphere between them, how the air is thick and heavy. The doors ding open, and Santiago is the one to rush out first, for once, but she pauses at the entrance to the building itself, waiting for him to catch up with her arms folded across her chest.

The edges of her lips quirk up as he reaches her. “ _Fleetwood Mac_?”

He chuckles as they leave the complex, walking side-by-side down the busy Brooklyn sidewalks. “Uh, don’t tell anyone, but I went to asthma camp when I was a kid, and they taught us a bunch of ways to control our breathing.”

“That doesn’t explain Stevie Nicks.” Her words are light, teasing.

Jake can feel the tips of his ears burning. “They told us that it helps to breathe to songs that are sixty beats per minute, so I always keep a playlist of those songs. It was either that or Bon Iver.”

He pretends that she isn’t hiding a wide, wide grin.

They chat idly for the next couple of blocks that it takes to get to his beat up old car, but before he opens the driver side door, she breathes out _Jake_ and suddenly he’s wrapped in her embrace, and it takes him a moment to realize what’s happening and respond in kind, bringing his arms up and around her waist. She even tucks her head into the angle of his collarbone, and Jake realizes that in all of the three years he’s known her, he’s never been this close to her.

She smells like lemons. It’s nice.

It feels like much too short yet much too long before she pulls away, bracing her hands on his forearms. Her features are soft in a way he’s never really seen.

“Um, thank you. Again.”

“Anytime.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this wasn't even about hugs, sorry. it got away from me.


	3. post break up kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: Post Break Up fic with Jake and Amy? Idk why but I want something angsty with desperate!Jake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all should know that i don't know how to write angst but here ya go!!!

Jake is numb.

Over the last two years of their relationship, he and Amy had never really fought. Yeah, there was that time he didn’t want to buy a mattress and she didn’t want to tell her mother that they were dating, actions that they both took to indicate the lack of investment they respectively had in the relationship, but with an aptly-worded metaphor (if not a little over-explained) from their captain, they had been smiling and laughing a few hours later.

Now, he wonders if he even heard her slam the door like she did. With a tendency to blow things up just a bit, Amy has had her bouts of anger. But she’s never slammed the door to their apartment, never left without giving him a heads-up on where she was going, never turned her back while he stood there, still and unwavering.

Jake is numb.

If someone were to hold a gun up to his head and force him to explain what led up to him, now slouched against the wall with his bare feet on their wood floor, he would probably be murdered in some dark, damp alleyway because for the life of him, he can’t recall exactly how they got here.  He thinks he made a comment about his parents, and she said something about his dad being a cheater, and it devolved into a shouting match about how she doesn’t have a right to say anything about the definitely asshole estranged father, about how he’s too blinded by his want to have a whole family that he’ll ignore it all. She leaves and he thinks that maybe that this is how life works—people come in and out, take your heart and tear it in two.

Jake is numb.

There’s a little velvet box in the back of his dresser drawer full of dirty clothes that Amy refuses to touch—an easy _I love you but I’m not touching any of that_ punctuated by a quick peck on his forehead. If he pushes himself, he’ll remember her saying something akin to his commitment issues (“Do you even want to spend the rest of your life with me?”) which he won’t deny the abundance of them in his past, but when he recalls each time he made a statement like “for the rest of our relationship,” it makes him realize just how much it probably chipped away at her faith in it all, in _them._ He knows that she knows that he loves her more than anything in his life; she has to be. 

Right?

Jake is numb, but moving.

His sneakers appear on his feet before he even realizes he made the decision to scrounge for socks, his keys are in his hand and he’s almost a block down the street when he stops to ask himself where he’s going. And it comes to him.

Jake is numb, unmoving as he stands at the end of the aisle.

Ms. Victoria, the woman who works the front desk at the public library, looks at him oddly when he approached her desk at half past midnight to ask if his girlfriend had come by (the old librarian’s expression grows fond when he mentions Amy, and he doesn’t blame her). At her nod, Jake knows exactly where she is, and he thanks the kind woman before hauling ass up two flights of stairs.

And there she is—dressed in her hastily thrown-on maroon jacket and leggings, her hair pulled back in a particularly messy ponytail, wisps of hair falling to rest on the back of her neck—in the folktale section, searching the stacks for something that catches her eye, and he remembers how while they’re curled up together on the couch, her head on his chest as the television plays faint in the background, she’ll quietly tell him the stories that her mother used to read to her when she couldn’t sleep as a child. She looks soft, but when she moves a lock of hair behind her ear, he sees that her cheeks are raw and red, like she’s been crying which she definitely has.

“Amy?”

Her head snaps up then, angled to the source of the sound, and her gaze slides to fall on him, and her lips part, just slightly. The book in her hands closes with a thud, but she doesn’t seem to realize that it’s still in her grasp. She asks him what he’s doing here, and without thinking he finds himself stepping toward her, cupping her face in his hands, and when he kisses her, she doesn’t pull back or ask him _why._ He kisses her, and it’s soft and quiet and _loud_ all at once, tastes a little like salt and the strawberry chapstick that she keeps tucked in her purse.

There’s a soft _thud_ when the book presumably lands on the carpet, because her arm wind around his neck while his move to her waist, and he’s not sure if the salt-water on his lips are from him or her, or maybe it’s the both of them. But he feels the heat from her cheeks, and when she pulls away, her lips are parted slightly as she rests her forehead against his, and he _knows_ it doesn’t fix anything, that they need to talk about it all (and they _will,_ they will, when they can catch their breath and pick up the fallen book and hopefully not get kicked out from the library—which they have before, for making out between the Epistemology and Metaphysics stacks).

 


	4. christmas + baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked for "jake and amy first christmas with their new baby"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops
> 
> let me know if i mess anything up concerning hanukkah

Though his feelings toward Christmas are nowhere the level of hostility he previously had for Thanksgiving, Jake has never been the biggest fan of the holiday—after his dad left, he and his mom stuck to only celebrating Hanukkah, but Karen has always been really enamored with the decoration side of the Christian holiday, so a plastic tree was a staple in the corner of their tiny living room along with hand-made ornaments (many made by her bright-eyed students who wanted to make little snowmen for an art project), even though they never put any presents underneath. His mom claimed to really love the smell, too, so they’d be surrounded by cinnamon and pine needles even as they lit the candles on the _hanukiah_ and played with the dreidel and ate a little too much chocolate.

As he gets older, his neutrality turns to at the very least a slight favorability, as he and his friends and coworkers screw with each other with White Elephant—while Jake normally prides himself on his ability to give truly hilarious gifts, one time he was given a balloon filled with the little slips of paper someone took from what must have been thirty fortune cookies—and later, getting sincere gifts for Secret Santa and his close friends, and later for Amy when they start dating (except four years into their partnership he definitely gets her a set of pens from a Korean website she mentioned not being able to get a hold of, and he passes it off as an apology for losing her stapler).

Amy, on the other hand, has always _loved_ Christmas.

He knows this, because every year since starting at the Nine-Nine she insists on mailing everyone a Christmas card, and it featured her and her entire family in silly sweaters and most of the time he could barely make out her face because there were so many of them (up until now of course, when the card she sends out is now from the Peralta-Santiago’s, and pictures her and him with baby Bella in between them, clothed in the cutest white and red striped dress from Karen when Bella turned six months old, earlier in December).

However, he doesn’t know _how_ much her family loved it until he tagged along for _Noche Buena_ last year, when they traveled out to New Jersey for what was quite possibly the biggest meal he’s ever had—all of her brothers and her nieces and nephews and cousins and aunts and uncles and probably they didn’t even know piled into her parents’ house and ate more food than he’s seen in his entire life. And Camila Santiago _is_ a phenomenal cook, and it makes him kind of sad he never got to eat the turkey she brought that rather disastrous Thanksgiving two years ago. It was kind of an intimidating few hours for Jake, because while they all attended the wedding, the reception hall was a much larger space and it wasn’t all at once and Amy wasn’t secretly three months pregnant at the time. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea for them to keep it hidden, considering how intoxicated she normally got at family gatherings like these—her brother Luis pulled him aside to ask if he had knocked her up (they’re _married,_ for God’s sake) after she turned down a shot of tequila, because his sister is well-known for her low tolerance and apparently they were all wanting Seven-Drink Amy, who speaks solely in Spanish idioms, to make an appearance that night.

(They made it through the night with only Luis and her parents finding out, which she called a victory. She explained to them quietly that they didn’t want to tell anyone, as Amy Santiago is the most careful person he has ever met and they wanted to wait until after twelve weeks, just to be safe.)

He spent most of the night mingling with her family and getting pecked on the cheek more times than he can count, catching her eye across the room as she had her niece Gloria in her lap and made the little girl giggle almost uncontrollably. Later, he sat down beside her on the overcrowded sofa, sliding his arm around her waist and tucking her into his side. Gloria’s eyes lit up as her aunt started telling her about Tio Jake dressing up as Santa and setting a bunch of Christmas trees on fire, and she laughed even as her uncle protested a few of the details (“Your aunt is lying, I _so_ did not lose a reindeer!”).

They left early, claiming they had to work in the morning (which, they didn’t have to clock in until three or so), and after cranking the heat up all the way, she curled up in the passenger seat with his hand in hers and a large grin painting her lips. The entire trip home, she insisted on listening to all of the available Christmas stations, which she had written down on a notecard and kept in his glovebox.

(Despite protests from her parents, they leave Bella in the care of _his_ mother this year, because the six month old has finally settled into a sleep routine that involves lying down at eight o’clock, and Amy is _not_ about to sacrifice an entire binder of planning just for her entire family to coo over her child. They have plenty of pictures and videos and stories to share, though, which seems to be sufficient enough for the Santiago clan.)

There are also the multiple binders Amy dedicates to the holiday, with gift ideas, holiday card designs, coupons, decoration plans, and even a section on Christmas carols that he’s thankful she never _actually_ tries to sing—though, while she has no vocal ability concerning the holiday, he does treasure the moments when she has Bella against her chest, singing quietly of a Cuban nursery that her mother used to sing her (her voice is soft and lilting, and once their baby’s eyelids start to droop, he curls himself around them both, pressing a kiss into his wife’s hair). And while they don’t have a real fireplace, she does hang up three little stockings on their mantle, covered in glitter and puff-paint, as they totally had a stocking-decorating contest which Jake definitely won, no matter what Amy says. She even made a schedule of the best mall Santa’s so they could get the classic “Baby Crying While In Santa’s Lap” picture to hang on their fridge (and really, he thinks that theirs is the best, as Bella literally has tears streaming down her face and the guy dressed up as Santa trying his hardest to make her laugh).

Because of her intense love of the holiday, he assumes that Amy will want to start their child’s first Christmas bright and early, or at least make a big deal of the morning itself. But instead, he wakes up on his own, with sun in his eyes the light through their blinds making a soft, golden pattern on his wife’s face, on her hair. He rolls over to see that it’s nearly ten, and is faintly surprised that Bella hasn’t woken up yet, but decides to take it as a gift, pressing his lips into Amy’s shoulder.

“Five more minutes,” she grumbles.

He smiles, even as she wiggles to sandwich her feet in between his, because they’re frozen and she refuses to wear socks to bed.

(Once she wakes up, they’ll spend the day curled up on the sofa watching old Christmas movies with hot cocoa in their hands, while Bella plays in her new playpen on the floor below. She scoots around on her rear, and it’s so adorable he takes a video of it to put on his Snapchat story. )


	5. pillowtalk + post-5.12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twenty years ago, emma (@fourdrinkamy on tumblr) asked: "jake taking amy out for dinner after her making sergeant/ engaged dorks pillowtalking n being retrospective abt their relationship/ how their new years eve went/ charles interrogating them after their honeymoon take ur pick idk idk"
> 
> i literally started writing every single one of her requests, and finally finished this one. this was written at 2am with no editing. cheers!

“I still can’t believe you’re finally home.” Her voice comes out as just barely a whisper, with her mouth pressed against the thin cotton of his sleeve so that he can feel her lips move.

Furrowing his eyebrow, Jake glances down at her—he thought she’d drifted off already, as she’s normally out by eleven. But instead, her eyes are wide and a little watery, and vulnerable in a way that worries him, just a little. Then she lifts her chin, rests it on his shoulder. The fingers of her left hand mess with the hem of his gray shirt, belying her nerves. “I just, you were gone for two months. And two months before that. And then six months before that.” Amy takes a deep breath, shaky. “I’d finally gotten used to having you back, and then you left again.”

She tries to mask it, but her words are tinged with hurt and it makes his heart ache. Shifting just a little, he leans so that he can press his lips against the skin right above her eyebrow. Softly. Briefly. “I know, and I hate being away from you. But I’m the reason—”

“Jake, Holt didn’t do it just for you.  He did it for Rosa and for me, too.” He pulls back, frowns in bemusement, but she bites her lip and avoids his gaze. “If he hadn’t called Murphy, I would have. The point is, protecting Kevin wasn’t your sole responsibility. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know.” His throat feels raw. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed _you_ so much.”

Bringing his hand to her dark locks, he combs through her hair slowly, but then he feel something thin and crinkled tangled in it—apparently, she hadn’t been able to brush all of the shreds of paper she’d subpoenaed out. He can’t help but chuckle at it, and something in Amy’s eyes shines in a way that almost blinds him. “You know, in three months, we’ll be in deep Staten Island, on that grimy little basketball court that I know you’re going to make look like a Nancy Meyer’s film.”

Unsuccessfully, she attempts to suppress a grin. “I’m more of a Nora Ephron kind of girl.”

“I agree: _When Harry Met Sally_ is a masterpiece.”

She laughs softly, and he thinks he’d like to bottle up that sound and keep it on his shelf forever, or record it on his phone so he can make it his ringtone for everything. Closing his eyes, he soaks the moment in, and then she speaks, her voice quiet but warm. “We’re getting _married_ in ninety-four days.”

And then he kisses her, slow and languid. The angle is a little weird, but she shifts so her torso is fully on top of his, her hands drifting to cup his cheek while his steady at her waist. It’s a moment he wishes he could live in forever, but he sinks into it now, the feeling of her thumb against his jaw, the smooth column of her neck under his lips.

And later that night, when the sweat clinging to their skin finally cools and Amy slides her feet in between his, frozen because she refuses to wear socks, and her head is tucked firmly underneath his chin, her cheek pressed against his collarbone, his fingers linger on hers, stroking the cold metal of her ring lazily, in time with the rise and fall of her chest.


	6. drunkenly calling each other "husband" and "wife"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon asked: jake and amy getting drunk at shaw's calling each other "my wife" and "my husband"

In this very moment—and to be frank, for the past two hours—Rosa has to physically restrain herself from punching someone. Namely, Jake and Amy.

Don’t get her wrong; Rosa _loves_ her best friends, and she loves spending time with them. Some of her best memories have been in this bar, drinking in silence with Jake after a hard case. Honestly, she even finds chatty Amy to be _hilarious,_ in that, due to her ridiculously low alcohol tolerance, her personality changes with each shot and overly confident Amy Santiago may be one of her favorite things.

It’s why she’s out here with them tonight, at the dimly lit Shaw’s, tucked away in a little booth in the corner because while she doesn’t want to admit it, she adores those dorks. And Alicia is here too—they’ve been dating for about two months now, and ever since Rosa had described the makeshift wedding (“it looked like a damn Nancy Meyers film”) she’d wanted to meet the couple.

Rosa wishes she had made an excuse, or at least picked a place where her friends wouldn’t have the opportunity to get tanked.

Because her two best friends are now _wasted,_ but instead of being entertaining they’re just _fawning_ over each other. With her arm wrapped around his waist, Amy also has her head tucked into his shoulder, and Jake flits between fiddling with the gold band around her finger and pressing his lips to her hairline. And they haven’t stopped referring to each other as their spouse since their second drink. Which, she should have expected, but then they just keep interrupting Rosa and Alicia’s conversation to talk about each other, and it would be kind of cute if it wasn’t so goddamn annoying.

For instance, Alicia mentioned her childhood dog growing up, and right as the detective was about to respond with her own story about Arlo (fuck, she loves that dog), Jake butts in with a slurred, “Did you know that _my wife_ is allergic to dogs? Yeah one time _my wife_ almost _died_ because we were hiding in our boss’ bathroom during his birthday party.”

 And Amy giggled, then tried to straighten her face into something apologetic. “I’m so sorry, Alicia. My husband forgets social etiquette sometimes.”

“My wife is _wrong_ and I will prove it.”

Beside her, Alicia now looks like she wants to bolt, because while she remains smiling, she glances at Rosa out of the corner of her eye, desperately begging for help in her gaze. Idly, Rosa wonders if she and Gina need to rework the Santiago Drunkenness Scale to be the Santiago- _Peralta_ Drunkenness Scale, but goddamn, every level would probably just be “Jake and Amy love each other and won’t shut up about it.”

“You know, Rosa. On our first date, my _husband_ and I got really drunk and slept together.”

“I know that, Amy. I was there the next day when you two killed Dozerman.”

“They _killed_ someone?”

“Alicia, I promise that my wife and I are not murderers. We were just really horny and we startled a man.”

“Say the word and we can leave, Alicia.”

They end up leaving twenty minutes later, when Rosa genuinely begins to worry about them because Jake keeps on ordering more drinks “for my _wife!”_ and in return, Amy asks the waiter to “double it for my _husband!”_ and if she leaves them to their devices for any longer, Rosa is sure that they will get alcohol poisoning. So she and Alicia wrangle them into an Uber (which was a much bigger ordeal than it should have been, since they both tried to let each other in first, shouting back and forth: “No _you_ get in, husband!” and "My wife should always be the first in, so I can close the door like a good husband”).

When they finally manage to get the two in and pay the driver, Rosa and Alicia stand on the edge of the sidewalk, watching the Ford Focus roll down the street.

“Newly-weds, huh?”

Rosa shakes her head. “Time doesn’t matter—they’re gonna be this insufferable for the rest of their lives.”

**Author's Note:**

> leave your feedback, and feel free to send me prompts on [my tumblr](http://dmigod.tumblr.com) and i'll totally love you forever


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